Build:Me/A Vaettir HM Farmer

This build requires a rating. Please apply the appropriate tag based upon consensus. This build has been designed for the following use: PvE farming

Designed to farm Spectral Vaettirs in HM with a Mesmer/Assassin Solo. The build produces average times of around 4 minutes.

Attributes and Skills

<pvxbig> [build name="build: Me/A Vaettir HM solo farm" prof=me/a shadow=12 fast=8 inspiration=10+3+1][deadly paradox][shadow form][you are all weaklings][feigned neutrality][shroud of distress][channeling][cry of pain][ether nightmare][/build] </pvxbig>

Equipment

• Any Max armor with Blessed Insignias and Attunement/Vitae Runes of your choice.
• Spear or Axe with heavy prefix to extend weakness 33%, 20% enchant mod and +5 energy inscription.
• NB: Spear is preferred since you can attack any vaettir running off at range, thus pulling it back in so you don't need to finish off single targets.
• Any Max shield with +45hp while enchanted or +30hp and a +10 vs. Earth Damage inscription
• Norn Rank 4 or more to keep weakness up all the time.
• Sunspear Rank, no req. the higher the better for longer degen, but even at rank 0 Cry of Pain gives more damage than gets past the Shadow Form Cap at 12 points in Shadow Arts. Difference in degen is only 20hp from 0 to Max in Sunspear rank
• Kurz/Lux rank, no req. the higher the better for longer degen, but only makes a 30hp degen difference from 0 to max Allegiance Title.

Usage

Make sure you have as much free inventory space as possible.
In Longeye's Ledge, turn on HM, zone to Bjora Marches and run to Jaga's Moraine.
You should be able to get there without any agro of the normal patrols.
Sometimes there will pop up a Frost Wurm, if that happens, trigger Deadly Paradox and Shadow Form, then hit Feigned Neutrality, Ignore the wurm and continue to Jaga Moraine.
Occasionally there are random Frozen Elementals in your path, they have a huge agro, but pose no real threat.
Just keep Shadow Form up and keep running while ignoring them, and use Feigned Neutrality if you need a heal.
The run to Jaga without speed boost takes a little less than 3 minutes.

After you get to Jaga Moraine:
Take the bounty.
Precast Shroud of Distress and Channeling.
Trigger Deadly Paradox and Shadow Form, and from now on Maintain it.
Use it's first recharge to aggro ALL Vaettirs North-West of Shrine/Portal.
You will Start taking damage as they chase you, no need to worry about it.
Take care not to get body blocked.
Once you see you have the agro of all Vaettir you should be almost ready to recast Shadow Form.
Recast Shadow Form, then hit Feigned Neutrality, if you still need to aggro some, do so as fast as possible.
Stand still and wait until all Vaettirs have come to hug you, or Feigned Neutrality runs out.
Do NOT attack or use any skills before it's time to use "You Are All Weaklings" Once you trigger Feigned Neutrality.
They should all ball up around you by the time Feigned Neutrality ends, then "You Are All Weaklings" will affect all of them, and be held up constantly.
Press C to find closest Target.
From Now on Spam "You Are All Weaklings" on recharge.
Use Ether Nightmare Followed by Cry of Pain.
Keep Shadow form up and Refresh Shroud of Distress and Channeling on recharge, and if possibe, right before you see all Vaettirs are about to die.
Collect loot.
Run down to the South and repeat with Vaettirs there.
Collect loot.
Run to Portal and Re-Zone.

An average run will take around 4 minutes in total. From zone in to zone out again.
Add 1 minute or so to the time if you die.

Counters

• Not keeping Shadow Form up.
• Attacking Vaettirs or using skills While they ball up on you after you trigger Feigned Neutrality.
• Getting bodyblocked while grabbing agro.(Will add a couple of minutes to the run, since you need to kill in 3-4 turns instead of 2.
• Forgetting to keep weakness on vaettirs by spamming "You Are All Weaklings" on recharge.
• Forgetting to renew Shroud of Distress.
• Forgetting to renew Channeling.

Variants

• Great Dwarf Armor can replace "You Are All Weaklings", but then you need to use Feigned Neutrality to heal up in between recharges.
• Radiation Field can replace Cry of Pain, but will get the total time a little over 4 minutes.
• Clumsiness with 2 points in illusion instead of either Cry of Pain, Radiation Field or Ether nightmare. Not recommended as it gives a lot less damage.
• Do not combine Clumsiness with Cry of Pain as they might attack before you cast cry of pain, adding more time to the run.
• Light of Deldrimor can replace one of the damage skills, but you'll miss out of any degen damage and it's still capped at 21 damage at 12 points Shadow Arts, adding more time to the run.
• Dark Escape can replace Feigned Neutrality, it saves a little time, but is a bit more risky since you will take more damage. Mesmer have 10 less armor than the Assassin, and you have no backup heal.

Notes

About "You Are All Weaklings!"

• Shout. Target foe and foes adjacent to target are Weakened for 8...12 seconds.
• If you target a Vaettir a bit to one side of the mob you will notice you will take some minor damage, this is because the shout will not affect those that are not adjacent to your target.
• This will rarely be enough to kill you, Shroud of Distress should take care of it, but it's worth to keep in mind.

About weakness:

• Rank 4 Norn should do, if you use the heavy upgrade for axe/spear, since it adds 33% to the duration of the inflicted weakness.
• With rank 4 it's 10 sec + 33% = 13.3 sec.
• With 9 + 33% you end up on 11.97 sec so it's not 100% uptime.
• With weakness the Vaettir do exactly 0 damage to you.

After the agro run, while killing the vaettir:

• Keep Shroud of Distress up as a safeguard in case you are slow on renewing weakness, it'll give you time to react if you let weakness wear off.
• It also covers against any damage done by vaettirs that might not be affected by weakness.
• Shroud of Distress might cover the use of "You Are All Weaklings" with it's weakness downtime, even at Norn rank 0/1. (That's unconfirmed and needs to be tested though)
  

Screens

less than 4 Min Run

Where to run through Bjora Marches to avoid agro

Video

Not sure how others are measuring time on these runs.
I put a timer in the screen then started it before entering the area, finished the farm, zoned out and stopped where I was about to enter the area again.
The full cycle was 4 mins.